Shawn Maxam explains why most people continue to engage in unhealthy behaviors well into adulthood.
Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.
-Samuel Ullman
The ability to recognize boundaries is very difficult. Many of us believe we are emotionally mature individuals but the test to determine if this true is whether or not we recognize the intangible amorphous quality of boundaries.
Boundaries are a loosely defined concept of physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual space. Examples include: A male work colleague calling a married woman at midnight is over-stepping a boundary. A mother showing up at her married son’s home unannounced to spend the night is ignoring a boundary.
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The best way to gauge whether a behavior or action is boundary crossing is to just ask a simple question “is this behavior that is healthy for all parties involved?”.
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Children ignore boundaries all the time. It is usually because they don’t have the emotional capacity to recognize them. Children have emotional needs and they expect them to be met immediately. Adults (matures ones) recognize that a lot of their needs can either 1) Be met at only at a specific time or 2) Can never be met at all.
Just because we want something doesn’t mean we get to have it. Tantrums, violence (psychological and physical) and passive-aggressive behavior are tactics used by emotionally immature individuals who don’t have their boundary breaking needs honored.
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Parents who guilt us, spouses who shame us, friends who alienate us, work colleagues who dismiss us and so forth are all people engaging in unhealthy behaviors that do irreparable harm to our emotional well-being. Please do not allow this to happen. Please do not participate in doing this to others.
The best way to gauge whether a behavior or action is boundary crossing is to just ask a simple question “is this behavior that is healthy for all parties involved?”. Everyone involved should benefit. Not just you or only the second individual or only the third-party etc. We often do things because they make us feel better. We often do not consider how the other person(s) will feel.
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Our emotions are always valid. But how we express them is the difference between what makes us either emotionally mature adults or just bratty, inpatient, spoiled individuals (essentially babies trapped in adult bodies). The choice is always ours.
Please share this with friends, enemies and temporary allies alike.
Thanks for reading, sharing and commenting!
R.I.P. SKH
About S. Maxam
hummmmm, interesting. question; if one of the parties invovled could benefit MORE from doing it a differnet way, is that better? i’m thinking about my kids. its easier for me to do a lot of things for them rather than making them do things for themselves (make their beds, set the table, put their bikes away). but in the long run THEY will benefit more from doing these things themselves. we all benefit from a peaceful household (when mom does it and the kids aren’t involved), and i don’t mind. but i don’t want to baby them forever.
Well Misty I assume your kids are younger so you doing certain things for them is fine for now. I would think as they become young adults and mature they will become more independent and reciprocate the kind behaviors you have exposed them to.
thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
It’s always easier to do something for children than to wait for them to get it right. You have to watch them struggle, and depending on the situation, you’ll probably have to clean up after them, especially if they’re “helping” you. However, it always made me feel awful when I was doing my best, and my parents would get impatient and tell me to “go play”. I didn’t want to “go play” – I wanted to show them how grown-up I was trying to be.
I don’t think there is much reward for emotional maturity. There is a social validation you can get from presenting the appearance of emotional maturity. That means being quiet when it’s expected and being firm when it’s expected. Never mind what’s right or wrong to you or anybody. This is about appearances.
Real emotional maturity involves wrestling with a lot of complicated subtleties that are traditionally not man’s work. Society needs men to do this, but it wants men to project emotional simplicity.
As for boundaries, it’s like this. A man can set his own boundaries with inferiors and equals, but when it comes to his betters or the brotherhood of men, he had better not. Manhood as we understand it means knowing how to be controlled, and knowing how to control.
I’m sorry you see so little value in being emotionally mature. You appear to have given up and in to ugly stereotypes, foregoing the possibility of rising above them.
nice article but still i am confusing……